The general consensus so far is that Obama will offer a target number for deficit reduction, articulate parameters within which he thinks the negotiations should unfold, and reiterate his call for the tax cuts for the rich to expire. What remains to be seen is how clearly — or whether — he’ll articulate core principles he’s unwilling to budge from and whether he’ll articulate a baseline vision that’s non-negotiable.

Will the President indicate that even if he’s willing to entertain Medicare adjustments, the program’s core mission is sacrosanct — period, full stop — and that any talk to the contrary is a conversation-ender? Will he signal firmly enough that any talks that don’t include tax hikes on the rich are a non-starter? Or will the thrust of the speech merely serve to telegraph a willingness to strive for compromise as a goal for its own sake? At bottom, the question is whether Obama will go on the offensive, or whether the speech will put Dems on a weak footing going into this next battle.

* Did Obama really entertain “major changes” to Social Security? The New York Times explains the White House’s thinking on the defict reduction speech as follows:

Several presidential advisers interviewed in recent weeks said Mr. Obama has been torn between wanting to propose major budget changes to entice Republicans to the bargaining table, including on Social Security, and believing they would never agree to raise revenues on upper-income Americans as part of a deal.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone could conclude that it would be a good idea to signal a willingness to entertain major changes to Social Security at the outset, on the theory that it could induce Republicans to make concessions on tax cuts for the rich. So let’s presume this isn’t an indicator of what’s to come in the speech even in the most general sense.

* Plouffe: Tax hikes must be part of discussion: The closest we’ve seen to a hard line so far is when White House adviser David Plouffe said: “Revenues are going to have to be part of this.”

The coordinated push by the two top House Republicans to pivot from their previous victory to the next fights to come signal that the Dem willingness to fight out the spending wars mostly on GOP turf is only emboldening Republicans further.

For Obama, it is not good enough to cast himself as the school principal scolding competing congressional gangs. He needs the courage to defend the government he leads. He needs to declare that he will no longer bargain with those who use threats to shut down the government or force it to default on its debt as tools of intimidation. We’re all a bit weary of Obama telling everyone to be grown-ups, but this would be the grown-up thing to do.